


The Journey Home

by Mejhiren



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Victorian, British Officer!Peeta, East Indian, F/M, Implied Non-Con (Not Everlark), India, Indian Everdeens, Indian!Katniss, Mehendhi, Moustached!Peeta, Saris, Victorian!Everlark, Victorian!Peeta, Virgin!Everlark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:57:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6152953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mejhiren/pseuds/Mejhiren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss leaves behind a servant's life in India and travels to England as the bride of a gentle army captain. Originally written and posted on Tumblr in 2013 as a soldier!Peeta drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Journey Home

Katniss never meant to drop the chicken.

She had been serving at dinner as on every other night, and she stood alongside Captain Mellark’s chair, the plate of savory butter chicken in her hands. Enough chicken to feed her and her mother and her sister for an entire day, presented as a single meal to one strapping young Englishman.

There were six of them in the house in total, five all but identical with their elegantly lazy accents and ginger side-whiskers, but this one was different. Captain Mellark was like a _murti_ come to life, with his porcelain skin and bright jeweled eyes. His thick hair was the color of honey; his downy side-whiskers and moustache a shade darker, like aged brass. She’d come to his room with fresh linens one morning and found him shaving, precise as a surgeon, his chin and cheeks lathered with fine sandalwood soap. The memory of it made something tingle, not uncomfortably, in her belly.

The other maids tittered like so many quail over his moustache and the size of the bulge in his trousers. English officers thought little enough of taking a local girl to bed, but Captain Mellark had thus far eluded their charms – leastways, as far as she had heard. Somehow, that made her like him a little more than the other officers, with their smooth voices and roving hands.

She stood beside his chair, reaching forward to set the plate on the table in front of him, when he raised one milk-pale hand to brush her bare wrist, ever so slightly, almost curiously. He had never touched her before – none of the Englishmen had. No man had ever touched her, save for her own father, who had died when she was a tiny child. She leapt as though she’d been burned and dropped the plate.

The delicate china shattered on the floor, spattering the trousers of her _salwar kameez_ and the young captain’s boots with the richly spiced gravy.  Mrs. Trinket shrieked with dismay and sent her home at once, while attempting at the same time to call for washcloths and soda water for Captain Mellark.

It was a minor punishment, like going to bed without supper, but being sent home before the meal had been cleared meant no scraps to take home and, more importantly, no food for her mother or sister. Thankfully, she had the foresight to grab a leg of chicken from the ruined plate and stuff it into the sash at her waist. One chicken leg divided among three women was precious little sustenance, but they could crack the bones and make a broth of the marrow; it would carry them through one more night.

As she fled the house, she heard Captain Mellark talking to Mrs. Trinket, and his gentle voice was raised in anger.

It was the rainy season, and she was quickly wet through, her sleek braid plastered to her skull, and she shivered. She did not often walk alone; unless one or another of the maids was spending the night with an officer, they all walked home together. This was a dangerous route for an unaccompanied girl. She wondered if she should move through the shadowed alleys herself rather than wait for whatever might come out of them.

“Wait!” a voice called from behind her. “ _Please_ wait, miss!”

She knew who it was before she turned, though she could scarce comprehend the reason for his pursuit, unless he meant to add his tongue-lashing to Mrs. Trinket’s. The young captain stood, flushed and breathless and as wet as she, the basket of _naan_ from the dinner table wrapped inside his scarlet coat.

“I am truly sorry,” he said, and it was clear he meant it. “Forgive me, miss. I was – I just…I wanted to touch you,” he said quietly, and his cheeks flushed darker still.

Something twinged in her brain at that, and she wondered what this beautiful young man was really in search of. After all, her sweet, pretty sister was the product of an Englishman who _just wanted to touch_. A young man with a careless smile and a dusting of freckles over his fair skin; just a boy, really, with a scarlet coat and a pistol. Her mother had been quick-witted enough to turn his advances into an overture; to prevent it from being forced. So skillfully had she concealed her fear and repulsion, had construed her tremors of fear as tremblings of anticipation, while shoving her little daughter away and hissing frantically for her to flee and hide. Katniss had been four at the time, wide-eyed and terrified of all the white Englishmen.

Made generous by satiety, the officer gave her mother coin afterward, enough for several meals, but she let it fall to the ground, and stopped Katniss from collecting it. _That is the price of my pride,_ she said. _I will not take it, nor will you._

Katniss cried herself to sleep with a hollow belly that night and did not hear her mother’s own shamed, angry weeping. Sometimes, even now, she was haunted by the sounds the man had made, grunting and moaning against her mother in a squalid alley.  When the baby came, a delicate-featured girl with hazel eyes and a slight curl to her hair, her mother accepted it as nonchalantly as a parcel from a friend, and loved her as well as if she had been the child of her dead husband. They never spoke of what had happened, but when Katniss bled as a woman for the first time at the age of twelve, her mother gave her a little dagger to carry always in her belt.   _In the eye or in the throat,_ her mother instructed sternly. _Anything else will only buy you time, and make it the worse for you in the end._

Somehow, she had never needed to use it. She was small and unexceptional, she supposed, with tiny breasts and barely a curve elsewhere to speak of, and there were willing women aplenty – and far lovelier besides. Most women in the village sighed over the officers’ creamy skin, soft hair, and broad hands. They giggled lustily at the things the Englishmen did in bed, the strange requests they made of their lovers.

She looked now at the young captain in front of her, his big hands holding his jacket closed around the bread basket, and wondered exactly what he wanted of her.

“Do you understand my speech?” he asked, for she had not yet spoken, and his handsome face grew a little worried.

“I do,” she replied. “The English priest taught us your tongue.”

He nodded, looking relieved. “Then you know I am sorry,” he said. “The fault was mine entirely. I fear I have cost you much with a thoughtless touch.”

“It has cost me little enough,” she told him, and wondered why it mattered so much that he be reassured. “Mrs. Trinket will not dismiss me over clumsiness; my English is too good. I shall simply go a night without supper.”

“You and who else?” he asked softly.

She looked again at the bread basket tucked inside his uniform jacket, and understood at last. Understood why he had taken it, and for whom it was now intended. A smile tugged at her lips. Mrs. Trinket could hardly chastise an English officer for stealing the entire table’s worth of bread.

He smiled in return, but there was worry behind the expression. “It cannot be safe for you to walk this way alone,” he said. “Come, I shall walk with you the rest of the way, and you may have the loan of my jacket.”

He placed the basket in her arms, then stripped off his scarlet coat to hold over her head. She was already too wet for it to make much difference, save that it kept the _naan_ dry and the rain from her eyes. They did not converse on the way, but the warmth of his silence spoke volumes. Her hand never inched toward the dagger in her waistband, and her shoulder was flush against his chest before they reached her home. He smelled of damp wool and sandalwood soap, of butter chicken and fresh bread and _hope_.

She invited him inside to dry himself a little before his return, and her sister, delighted by their handsome company and the meal he had secured for them, served him a cup of peppery chai with milk from their thin goat and laughed at his stories of English ladies and their dainty teas. Even her mother, who justifiably mistrusted all Englishmen, smiled as she pressed the water out of his jacket.

He kissed Katniss’s hand when he left, and she trembled for an hour after he had gone.

* * *

She came to the house the next morning, smiling softly to herself, and discovered, just about teatime, that something was wrong. The officers were gossiping over their cups like old women, and Captain Mellark was at the center of it. He sat in the drawing room with neither biscuit nor tea, a linen handkerchief crushed in one large hand, and his blue eyes were no longer jeweled but dull with tears. Now and again one of his fellows clapped him on the back and urged him to embrace his “good fortune,” and she wondered how they could not see the pain in his face.

She didn’t need Mrs. Trinket to explain. Someone had died, someone close to the young captain, making him both rich and free to return to England. The other officers envied what appeared to them a spectacular piece of luck.

He went at last to the veranda, and she followed him, silent as a shadow amid the hazy moisture in the air. When he stopped to look out over the drowned landscape, she slipped her slim arms about his waist and rested her face against his back. He let out a long, shuddering sigh and covered her hands with his, tugging her even closer. “It’s you,” he breathed, almost as though he’d expected her.

“You are sorely grieved,” she whispered.

“More than you know,” he answered. She could feel his voice as much as hear it, resonating through her own body like temple bells. She pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades and heard him sob. “My brother is dead,” he told her, “and I must go home at once. But…”

He turned in her arms, and it startled her, not unpleasantly, to see how intimately she held him as they faced each other. He was taller than her by more than a head, and yet they interlocked so perfectly.

“But I know, if I return to England now, I shall never see you again,” he said. “And this I cannot bear.”

She realized in that moment that she could not bear it either. She barely knew this gentle officer, and yet something in him called to something in her, though she dared not confess it aloud. “What can I do?” she asked him. “Tell me how to ease your sorrow.”

“Marry me,” he said simply, and her heart leapt in terrified elation. “Come to England as my wife. I know it is too soon, and perhaps distasteful to you, but I cannot leave you behind. Be my companion; that is all I ask. In return I will give you every comfort, and will take nothing from you which is not freely offered.”

“My mother and sister,” she protested weakly, “what of them?”

“They shall come too, of course,” he said. “I’ve money sufficient to buy us all passage, ten times over. Will you – _can_ you – do this?”

“I will,” she heard herself say. He kissed her forehead and she felt her heart would burst.

* * *

“Well!” Mrs. Trinket said, a quarter-hour later, following a private meeting with Captain Mellark, who had since departed to seek Katniss’s mother’s consent to his suit. “Well, well, well. I suppose I must be prouder of you than any of my charges.”

Katniss recalled that Mrs. Trinket had been a governess in her youth. “Proud how, _memsahib_?” she wondered. “Because I am to marry Captain Mellark?”

“Captain Mellark?” the housekeeper echoed, and chortled. “You have no idea, have you, my dear girl?” She shook her cap of ginger curls, almost pityingly. “Your sweet admirer became an earl upon his brother’s death,” she said, “a highly ranked nobleman, and enormously wealthy besides. Back in England, he might have anything – any _one_ – he wished. And he wants you.”

Katniss considered this and felt a little hollow. “Why would he want me?” she wondered aloud.

“Because, I should think, he loves you,” Mrs. Trinket said, granting her a rare smile. “Of a surety, it must be so. In England, he would be compelled to marry a titled lady or an heiress. He’s marrying you here, before his return, that no one might oppose him.”

Something strange and warm and blissful enveloped Katniss at these words. “Oppose him?” she asked, catching vaguely at the housekeeper’s last words.

“As the heir to an earldom, he would be expected to find a Society bride and produce his own heir straightaway,” Mrs. Trinket told her. “The expectations for younger sons are somewhat less stringent. It is not so uncommon for an officer to wed a local beauty, even to bring her home, present her in Society. And if said officer happened to become the heir to an earldom en route to England,” she shrugged meaningfully, her eyes twinkling. “Little could be said in protest.”

“I have heard much of Captain Mellark’s – forgive me, _Lord_ Mellark’s – cunning,” Mrs. Trinket remarked. “But I daresay this is the first I have seen it in action. He will make a countess of a housemaid,” she said, smiling. “And they will adore you before they can recall a single reason why they should not.”

* * *

Katniss’s mother sent at once to a neighbor for _mehendhi_ paste – _at least a day old!_ she instructed her younger daughter – and covered Katniss’s hands and feet with intricate, aromatic patterns. As tradition also dictated, she worked the bridegroom’s initials into the design, though she would not tell her daughter where exactly they were located.

When the _mehendhi_ was dry, she opened her small teakwood chest and carefully removed her bridal sari, all brilliant red silk and fine gold embroidery, with a matching _choli_ and trousers. The magnificent clothing might have bought them food for several months, but not one of the three women could bear to sell it. She and her younger daughter dressed Katniss, winding and pleating and tucking the embroidered silk around her slender body, then slipping a pair of gold silk slippers – secondhand but lovely – onto her feet. Three small bags were packed, and their goat traded to a cousin for gold earrings and a garnet-studded _mang tikka_ for the center parting in Katniss’s freshly braided hair.

They met before the English priest less than half a day after Captain Mellark’s proposal. The young captain caught his breath in a gasp at first sight of his bride, and she blushed fiercely and stared at her slippers, thinking how magnificent _he_ was, so broad and golden and handsome in his fine scarlet coat.

Father Aurelius joined their hands, and Captain Mellark kissed her cheek. Many documents were signed and exchanged, and Katniss remembered Mrs. Trinket’s words about the captain, about the expectations awaiting him in England and his cunning plans to evade them. She suspected the documents were by way of proving their marriage outside of India, and found herself glad of them. Not simply for her protection, but to prove her place as his wife, a union indissoluble by any man or court. Because, for the first time, she realized how very much she wanted to be Captain Mellark’s wife.

* * *

The ship was as large as a village, but still the cabins were small, even those reserved for the wealthiest passengers. Katniss and her husband could span the room by standing side by side, arms extended, and though a dressing screen was provided, it was equally, unavoidably clear that, in this small space, they would have a minimum of privacy from each other.

Captain Mellark – _Peeta_ , he insisted – delicately offered his assistance in removing her bridal embellishments, and at Katniss’s consent, helped her unwind the yards and yards of sari fabric from about her body. When the last of it fell away, he gave a soft moan that made her shiver. “So beautiful,” he whispered.

She realized with a start that he was looking at the small expanse of smooth, dusky skin bared between her navel and the _choli_ , and wondered, trembling hard, what he might say at the sight of her breasts. Emboldened, she brought both hands to the front of the fitted bodice and began to unfasten it, her cheeks aflame, and had just exposed the swells of her small breasts when he made a strange, pained sound and stilled her hands on the fastenings. “No,” he said softly. “Please.”

He’d whimpered as though he was in pain. Maybe he didn’t like her dark skin. Maybe he didn’t want to see any more of it. “You don’t want this?” she asked in a small voice, wincing slightly.

“Katniss,” he groaned, and he bent a little to rest his forehead on hers. “I _want_ this. I want this _so_ very much – but not here, not like this. Not in a bunk on a creaking ship.”

He noticed her downcast expression and brought a hand to her cheek. “I want you to know me better, my love,” he said gently. “To trust me implicitly. To love me, if it is possible.  I want to know that your mother, for her sorrows, will not weep that her daughter lies with an Englishman, and for all these things, it is far too soon, no matter how you – or I – might wish otherwise.”

He blushed deeply and said, almost inaudibly, “I want to take you in my own bed, Katniss, all eiderdown and soft sheets against your glorious dark skin.”

She trembled a little, envisioning what her husband had just described, and wondered if she herself might not yet be ready for what she had been so very close to offering. “But what will we do in the interim?” she asked. “Surely two months or more lie betwixt us and your home.”

Her husband smiled. “We will share the bed, if you wish it,” he said, his blush resolutely refusing to fade, “for I should like, above all things, the privilege of holding you while you sleep. And we will talk, and take refreshment with your mother and sister, and the weeks will seem like days.”

“That, and nothing else?” she wondered, but playfully.

“What had you in mind, wife?” he asked.

Katniss stood on tiptoe and pressed a quick kiss to his mouth.

“Ah, _that_ ,” he said, and caught her to him with a grin almost childishly wide. “That, also, I think we might accommodate.”

He dipped his head a little and kissed her in return, and she wound her arms about his neck and laughed at the tickle of his moustache against her skin. And she knew, whatever else might lie ahead, that life with this man could not help but brim with happiness.


End file.
